Our world consists of several national currencies and as individuals or companies from one country trade across borders, the need for foreign currency arises. The foreign exchange market plays a key role in transferring financial payments across borders and moving funds and purchasing power from one currency to another. The movement of different currencies between countries determines a very important price: the exchange rate. It is the exchange rate that allows the currencies to be traded for profit. The foreign exchange is not a physical exchange, but an electronic structure. The (spot) FOREX market is open 24 hours a day, from Sunday evening through Friday afternoon (North American time).
Virtually all large institutions and professional traders conduct most of their foreign exchange dealing in the (spot) FOREX market. The (spot) FOREX market pairs together currencies from different countries and quotes them according to the values of the respective currency. In the example of one common current pair, EUR/USD, the First Currency (EUR-Euro) is known as the Base Currency. It shows how much the Base Currency is worth as measured against the Second Currency (USD—US Dollar). For example, if the EUR/USD rate equals 0.9762, then one Euro is worth 0.9762 US Dollar. If a trader believes that the US Dollar will rise in relation to the Euro, the trader would sell EUR/USD. That is, sell the Euro and buy the US Dollar.
With the advent of electronic trading, it is more critical than ever to make appropriate entry and exit decisions quickly to maximize profits while minimizing losses. This is especially true with day trading. The investor can also be easily overwhelmed by the vast amount of information available about a specific market, industry sector or investment. In addition, when investors trade the live market without any trend indication relative to the foreign currency pair being traded, they are not trading with the trend. The foreign currency pair price, therefore, will move further against the investor's entry point and thousands of dollars can be lost while the investor waits for the movement to come back their way. If the investor is long in the exchange pair, but the trend is short, the foreign currency pair movement may never return the investor's way.
There is, therefore, a need for an apparatus and method to analyze market data (e.g., (spot) FOREX data) and develop trade information, which reduces the risk and loss for the investor. There is also a need for an apparatus and method to provide the investor with greater order entry/exit guidance than might be received through a broker or through monitoring the raw market data.